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Sick kids open up to emojis
Hospital uses innovative communication tool to ease young patients’ fears.
Staff at the Sydney Children’ s Hospital, Randwick, have broken out the happy, teary and angry emojis as a way to open up dialogue about treatment and enable younger patients and their families to communicate their feelings.
A patient suggested the concept to staff who ran with the idea, incorporating emoji choices such as wheelchair, x-ray, tablet, and food and drink into patient communication boards.
The hospital’ s clinical nurse educator, Maria Brien, said the emojis prompt a conversation with and between the patient and / or family, which may be difficult to initiate with words. She added this is especially significant for young people who are unable to express their needs and feelings verbally.
“ In doing this, we have modelled how the patient voice is not only about words, and changed how nurses interact with young people,” Brien said.
“ The boards are an opportunity to show how children and adolescents can be actively engaged in the co-production and implementation of a change to improve the hospital experience for children and young people.”
Brien, along with colleague and quality officer Laurel Mimmo, presented the idea to a room of nurses, nursing students and health professionals at the recent Australian College of Nursing’ s National Nursing Forum in Sydney.
ACN said hospitals can be an overwhelming place for children and adolescents, where their thoughts and feelings can be overshadowed by confusing conversations about their treatment and care. Chief executive adjunct professor Kylie Ward said using innovative communication tools likes emojis that would appeal to younger patients makes the hospital setting less intimidating.
“[ It ] gives younger patients a real sense that what they have to say is important and matters.” ■
My Health Record headed for ED
Plan to improve access to patient records for emergency department clinicians.
The Australian Digital Health Agency has announced an emergency department My Health Record pilot to develop a model that optimises clinician access to patients’ health information, such as medicines, test results and GP consultations, that may not otherwise be available in the hospital information systems.
The pilot, a partnership between the agency and the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, will build on the My Health Record participation trials conducted by the Nepean Blue Mountains and the Northern Queensland Primary Health Networks. The commission will work with hospitals within the two health networks to develop a pilot model over the course of the project, which will then be trialled in other hospitals in Australia.
Agency chief executive Tim Kelsey said My Health Record is associated with reductions in duplicated testing and lower hospital readmission rates, but added the agency needs to identify potential barriers to its uptake in hospitals and enable better integration with primary and secondary healthcare providers.
The commission’ s chief executive, adjunct professor Debora Picone, said it can be time-consuming for hospital staff to gain information on a patient’ s medicines, what their GP has been doing to manage the condition, and the procedures provided by other hospitals.“ This time could be better used treating the patient.” To date, over five million people have signed up to the digital system, which enables healthcare providers to share secure health data, and over 10,000 healthcare providers are connected.
Prior to the pilot’ s announcement, the Australian College of Nursing said nurses believe a national shared electronic health record has the potential to be an important tool in improving health outcomes, but must be assured their patient’ s confidential medical information is secure and protected.
Adjunct professor Kylie Ward, chief executive of ACN, added that nurses must be involved in the development, implementation and ongoing maintenance of My Health Record.
“ The majority of frontline health services in this country are delivered, at least in part, by nurses, so it is critical they have a real say in how our national electronic record is designed to make it as user-friendly as possible,” she said.
The pilot will be led by a senior emergency department clinician and is expected to take two years, with an interim report due to the agency in June 2018. Stakeholders and consumers will also be consulted via roundtables, workshops and targeted interviews. ■
4 | nursingreview. com. au